UNCLE JACK, CHOSEN CHILD & RECONSIDERING HANNA(H) Set for BPT's 33rd Season

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) today announces the three new plays that will comprise its 33rd season. The line-up includes Reconsidering Hanna(h) by Deirdre Girard, Chosen Child by Monica Bauer and Uncle Jack by Michael Hammond.

"These are amazing new works-all of them play with our imaginations in different yet specific ways," says Kate Snodgrass, Artistic Director of BPT. "We begin with a theatrical telescoping of time and space, mapping the inner struggles of two women on the edge and across centuries, to a lost child in the NYC Port Authority, and finally end with a witty and surprising behind-the-scenes look at a theatre company in trouble. I'm eager to hear the conversations these radical points of view provoke in our audiences."

The company's season will open in late September with Reconsidering Hannan(h) by Deirdre Girard. After accepting a seemingly tame assignment, international journalist Hanna becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering the history of another Hannah: the infamous Hannah Dustin who was kidnapped by a Native American raiding party in 1697. Reconsidering Hanna(h) will be directed by New Repertory Theatre Associate Artistic Director Bridget Kathleen O'Leary. A graduate of Boston University's M.F.A. Playwriting Program, Girard has been a playwriting fellow at New Repertory Theatre in Watertown where she developed Reconsidering Hanna(h) over the past two seasons.

In November, BPT will present Monica Bauer's Chosen Child. Three generations of mothers and memories combine to change the fate of a schizophrenic man at the Port Authority Bus Terminal as he waits for a sister he hardly knows, to fulfill an agreement that was never made. Megan Schy Gleeson, who directed Peter M. Floyd's Absence at BPT last season, will direct. Bauer is a 2007 graduate of Boston University's M.F.A. Playwriting Program whose award-winning plays have been seen off-Broadway (My Occasion of Sin, Lighter) and beyond (Detroit Repertory Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe). This summer Bauer will perform her autobiographical solo show The Year I Was Gifted at the Whitney Arts Center in Pittsfield, MA.

The final play of the season is Michael Hammond's comedy Uncle Jack, a co-production with the Boston Center for American Performance. In this modern-day retelling of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya - which Hammond will also direct - Uncle Jack, his niece Sonya, and his British brother-in-law Derek struggle to save their small summer theatre company in the Berkshires...and the company's looming demise causes old wounds to bleed afresh. Hammond is a member of Boston University's School of Theatre faculty, and Uncle Jack is his first full-length play. As an actor, Hammond is familiar to audiences for his work with the Huntington Theatre Company, Shakespeare & Company, Portland Stage Company and on Broadway.

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